


Fallen Dot

by sbuggbot



Category: SteamWorld Dig (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, One-Shot, Toriel's momming people again, going through the ruins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 07:32:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13497518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbuggbot/pseuds/sbuggbot
Summary: While exploring the world with her friend, Dorothy ends up separated from him and falls into a strange Underground world. One-Shot, Post-Dig 2 (sort of - characters are but scenario isn't), takes place before Frisk falls down.





	Fallen Dot

“Ow-www,” Dorothy groaned. She rolled over on the small flower bed she landed facedown on and winced. Man, she must have really messed up her leg when she landed. Looking up, she saw that the opening of the mountain was far, far above. Too far to climb up by herself, especially with a bad leg.

Dorothy sat up part of the way and inspected her leg. Her hip was twisted at an unnatural angle, and her knee and ankle had some stress damage. She was relieved to discover that her leg wasn’t bent anywhere. Bent parts were a pain to fix. Dorothy tried moving her leg, but it barely even twitched.

As far as she could tell, she was alone. Usually, her best friend Rusty was within shouting distance, but they had gotten separated. She wasn’t even entirely sure how. She had looked behind her at one point and he was missing, and he didn’t respond to her calling out to him. And she could be _loud_ , so it wasn’t likely that he didn’t hear her voice. There were large pillars surrounding the flowerbed. Glancing over, there was a hallway with some sort of doorway. Maybe this place wasn’t abandoned?

Dorothy tried to stand up. Not only could she not control her bad leg, she couldn’t even get it to support any weight. After falling over a few times, she stayed down and looked around for something to use as a crutch. Dorothy couldn't find anything in the environment, but she had her pickaxe with her. Pickaxes were made for chipping away dirt and rock, not supporting gimpy bots, but it’d have to do. She took off her scarf and wrapped it around the blade to cushion it, and used it to steady herself as she stood up.  She tucked the blade under her armpit and gripped the handle with her left hand. She took a step forward… and nearly toppled over. “Geez, how did Dad manage this with only one leg?” she wondered aloud. Sticking close to the walls in case she fell again, Dorothy slowly went down the hallway, her bad leg dragging behind her.

She went through the doorway and found a small patch of grass. There was a single golden flower growing in the middle of the patch. It had a face. Dorothy approached the flower and it began to speak.

“Howdy! I’m Flowey. Flowey the Flower.” The flower took a long look at Dorothy, who had fallen over in surprise. “Hmm...you’re new to the Underground, aren’tcha? Golly, you must be so confused.”

“I am,” Dorothy said. _I’m trapped inside a mountain, I’m using a pickaxe as a crutch, and now I’m talking to a flower._ “Do you know if…”

“Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! I guess little old me will have to do!”  There was some sort of transition that Dorothy felt but couldn’t describe. Flowey continued, “ You might be weak right now…”

“Excuse me?” Dorothy was plenty strong, thank you very much! Even if she was sitting on the ground and she was shivering even though it wasn’t that cold, she was not weak!

“But you can become strong if you gain enough LV.” Flowey said ‘LV’ as if it was an actual word.

“What? Is that an abbreviation or something?”

“That’s right! It stands for LOVE! You want some, don’t you?” Flowey didn’t wait for a response. “Of course you do! Here, I’ll share some with you!” Flowey stuck out his tongue and winked.

“I don’t think I need any--”

“LOVE is shared through… little white… ‘friendliness pellets’,” Flowey said, summoning a few. “Go ahead, catch some!”

Dorothy gripped her pickaxe in her hand. She didn’t like the look on Flowey’s face as he talked about these pellets. As they got closer to her, she swatted most of them away with her pickaxe, but one got past it and hit her squarely in the chest. For a little pellet, it _stung_. She cried out in pain.

“ **You idiot,** ” Flowey said, his face best described as a nightmare. “ **In this world, it’s kill or BE killed. You fell right into my trap.** ”

Dorothy scrambled backward and tried to get back on her feet, but fell over. “What…? Stop!” she cried. Little white pellets surrounded her, leaving Dorothy with no escape. Flower laughed maniacally as the pellets closed in on her. Dorothy curled up and braced herself for the worst. Just as the pellets were about to hit her, she heard a commotion, and a small fireball struck Flowey and sent him flying away. Dorothy peeked out and saw a massive beast standing near her with a gentle expression.

“I hope you’re okay, dear,” the beast said, kneeling down to her level. She was very fluffy. “Oh, do not be afraid. I will not hurt you. I am Toriel, caretaker of these Ruins.”

“I’m Dorothy.” She gestured to backpack, the contents of which were scattered around the floor. “Can you help…?”

“Of course,” Toriel said. As she helped gather Dorothy’s things, she said, “I pass through here every day to see if anyone has fallen down. It seems I got here just in time.” She handed Dorothy’s backpack back to her.

“Thank you,” Dorothy said.

“You’re not like any other creature I have ever seen before. If I may ask, what are you?”

“I’m a steambot. A steam-powered robot.”

“Very well. Come, little steambot. I will guide you through the catacombs.” Toriel turned and held out a hand. Dorothy nodded and tried to pull herself up off the ground. “Oh! You’re hurt, poor dear! Let me help you,” Toriel said. Even if she hadn’t ever seen a steambot before, it didn’t take a genius to realize that Dorothy’s leg shouldn’t bend that way.

“It-it’s fine, ma’am, I can manage until we get somewhere I can fix it.”

“Please! If I can do something to help you, tell me,” Toriel implored. “I do not wish to see you struggle so.”

Dorothy hesitated, then nodded. “I think… I think you might be able to pop my hip back into place. It won’t be a complete fix, but it’d help.”

Toriel knelt down next to Dorothy’s bad leg. “Alright, what should I do?”

“J-just turn my thigh outward.” Dorothy’s voice shook. “That should do it.”

“Is something wrong, dear? You sound unsure.”

“I’m just thinking it’ll hurt. A lot. But I don’t think there’s any other way. Wait, hang on,” Dorothy said. She took her scarf, shoved part of it into her mouth, and bit down on it. “O-keh,” she said through the scarf.

Toriel took Dorothy’s thigh and gently started to twist it. Dorothy immediately tensed up and held the grass in a death grip. She made a low humming noise. Toriel stopped and gave Dorothy a questioning look. “Are you sure, child?” Dorothy nodded vigorously. Toriel continued twisting the leg, and Dorothy started to scream. Even with the scarf in her mouth, the scream was pretty loud. Oily tears leaked from her eyes.

Then, the leg popped back into place. Dorothy immediately stopped screaming and tested her leg apprehensively. It responded fine now. She pulled her scarf out of her mouth, wiped off her face, and put it back around her neck, where it belonged. She thanked Toriel and got up.

“This way,” Toriel said. She turned around and walked out the door at the end of the room. Dorothy followed her to the entrance of the Ruins. She still had a limp, but she could deal with her leg later. Toriel waited patiently at the top of the stairs while Dorothy paused to take in the place. If these were just ruins, then what had the place looked like in its prime? She followed Toriel up the stairs, into the Ruins themselves. There were several buttons on the floor and a switch on the wall.

“Welcome to the Ruins. Allow me to educate you in the operations of this place.” Toriel walked across the buttons on the outer rows, then flipped the switch. “These Ruins are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. You must solve them to move from room to room.”

Dorothy nodded. She was no stranger to odd temples, having explored a couple during her travels.  She walked over to the puzzle to study it better, and Toriel said, “When you are ready, I will be in the next room,” and left.

Dorothy walked toward the door to follow Toriel and noticed that the solution to the puzzle was posted as a riddle near the door. “Huh,” she said to herself tiredly.

In the next room, there were two small streams that ran perpendicularly to the path.“Here, you will need to press several switches in order to progress,” Toriel said. “I even labeled them for you.” Indeed, two out of the three switches on the wall had yellow arrows pointing to them. She headed forward and waited at the farther bridge.

Normally, Dorothy would have objected and said that she could have figured out the puzzle herself, but she was too tired at the moment to complain. Fearing for her life and being in immense pain had taken the fight out of her. She just flipped the two switches and hobbled over to Toriel.

“Splendid! I knew you could do it,” Toriel said. “I get the feeling that you could have solved that puzzle on your own, but I prefer to err on the side of caution. Let us move on to the next room.” Out of curiosity, Dorothy tried the third switch and found that it didn’t even work. She got the feeling that these puzzles were designed for someone younger than she was.

Following Toriel, the next room contained… a cloth dummy. Dorothy gave Toriel a confused look.

“While in the Underground, monsters may try to attack you. If they do so, you will enter a FIGHT,” Toriel explained. “However, you can often end a FIGHT without harming the other monster if you ACT appropriately. Try practicing by talking to this dummy.”

Dorothy looked at Toriel like she had grown a second head. Nonviolently ending conflicts, that she understood. Talking to this cloth dummy seemed a bit absurd, but Dorothy still humored her. “Sooo… that weather, seems different,” she said. “But seriously, it’s really cold down here, colder than it should be.” Dorothy was half talking to the dummy, half talking to Toriel. She shivered and ached.

The dummy, however, was having nothing of that and flew off. Both girls looked up at where the dummy went with perplexed expressions on their faces. Toriel wordlessly went to the next room. Dorothy took a moment and held her head. She had gotten a headache all of the sudden. She shook her head and went onwards.

“I wonder if you could solve this next puzzle?” Toriel asked. Dorothy couldn’t see the puzzle from where she was standing in the room. Toriel led Dorothy through the first part of the room. As they entered a small hallway, a small frog-like creature leaped in front of Dorothy.

Once again, Dorothy felt that transition she felt while she was with Flowey. The Froggit seemed to be rather confused about what was going on. Generally, it didn’t seem overly hostile, unlike some of the other creatures Dorothy had encountered underground in the past. Dorothy decided to try complimenting the patterns on its skin. The Froggit didn’t understand what Dorothy said, but it was flattered anyway. Dorothy stepped to the side and the Froggit hopped off.

Toriel smiled. “Good job, dear. I would have intervened had you been younger, but you appeared to have the situation under control. Now, on to that puzzle…” They continued onward until they reached the puzzle itself. It was a bridge that had spikes on it. Toriel paused.

“What is it, Toriel?”

“On second thought, maybe you should not do this puzzle on your own. Your leg is still hurt, and I do not want to risk you hurting it further due to a misstep.” She held her hand out to Dorothy. “Come, take my hand and follow me.”

Dorothy tried to speak up and say that she’d be fine, just let her try at least on her own, but she started coughing instead. Her coughing fit did no favors for her headache. Defeated by her own body, she took Toriel’s hand and followed her across the bridge. She sighed as they got past the puzzle.

“Perhaps when you feel more like yourself,” Toriel said in consolation.

The next room was just a long hallway with a pillar at the end of it. “Now, this might seem like a silly exercise, but I feel it is still necessary,” Toriel said, “I would like you to walk to the end of this room by yourself.” Before Dorothy could say anything, Toriel ran towards the other end of the room.

“You are such a strange woman,” Dorothy muttered. As she began her trek, the hallway suddenly seemed much longer than it was.

A quarter of the way across, Dorothy started to feel dizzy. _Everything hurts._

A third of the way across, she couldn’t stop shivering if she tried. _Is it really that drafty in here?_

Halfway across, Dorothy stumbled and collapsed. _Uggggh…._

Toriel gasped, but she waited for a moment to see if Dorothy would get up on her own. When she didn’t Toriel raced back to where she had fallen. “Oh, dear! Are you alright?” Toriel knelt down next to Dorothy, putting a paw on her shoulder.

Dorothy flinched at Toriel’s paw touching her. It was a gentle touch, but it made her ache even more. “Cold…”

“Hmmm… you certainly don’t feel cold.” Toriel said. “I’m sorry for pushing you so much. Here,” Toriel said, effortlessly picking up Dorothy and carrying her in her arms. “Let’s just head home.”

Dorothy clung onto Toriel’s robe with one of her hands and snuggled into her. “Mmh… feel cruddy…” she mumbled.

“It’s alright. Just relax, little one.” Toriel murmured. Her walking lulled Dorothy to sleep soon enough, although it wasn’t a very deep sleep. Toriel rushed through the Ruins, back towards her house. Dorothy spent the trip half-asleep and occasionally mumbling things. There was one point where she was partially lucid but still confused about where she was, before concluding, "Oh, I'm with goatmom."

Once inside, Toriel tucked Dorothy into the bed in the spare room and turned out the light.

 

 

_Meanwhile, just outside Mt. Ebbot..._

Rusty looked around.  _There're Dot's footprints, but where's Dot?_ He found a hole, one with vines growing around and into it. He crept closer to the hole and peered down into it.  _Could she have...?_

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the idea of Dorothy and Rusty (even though he wasn't really in this work |D) exploring the Underground together in my head for a while now, and I don't even know why other than I am obsessed with the SteamWorld games. I have a couple other ideas, but they're just disjointed scenarios that wouldn't translate as well into a fic, more than likely. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I've tentatively named this crossover "SteamTale", but I'm open to more creative suggestions.
> 
> Also is it bad form to add things after you've posted the fic if so WHOOPS.


End file.
